Multicam vs Scorpion

Capt Private RallyPoint Member — Fri, 07 Nov 2014 03:12:55 -0500

I'm curious about the community's opinion on this issue. Word on the street is that Crye Precision developed the Multicam pattern as part of an Army competition for a new camo pattern, after which the Army balked at paying Crye's licensing fees and proceeded to rip off Multicam for its own purposes (it essentially removed a splotch and renamed it "Scorpion"). Can anyone corroborate or refute the rumors? If this is, in fact, the correct version of events, how do you feel about the ethics, both on the Army's and Crye's side?

Response by Cadet 4th Class Private RallyPoint Member made Jan 16 at 2015 5:04 PM

Cadet 4th Class Private RallyPoint Member — Fri, 16 Jan 2015 17:04:13 -0500

Sir,
There are some small vertical line aspects in Multicam that are not in scorpion, also the colors were changed by half a shade to "optimize" the pattern for Afghanistan. While the idea that the military would steal a company's intellectual property is revolting the recent lawsuit by the Florida based ammo manufacturer it doesn't seem like this is the only time it's happened.

Response by SGT Private RallyPoint Member made Nov 1 at 2018 1:27 AM

SGT Private RallyPoint Member — Thu, 01 Nov 2018 01:27:50 -0400

Crye submitted the scorpion pattern for the "Future Warrior" program. All submissions to the program became the property of the army when submitted. Crye understood this and agreed to it when they entered the program. When the army disbanded the future warrior (FE)program, they shelved the items that were submitted. Fast forward to Afghanistan (2010?). The ACU is proving to be ineffective in concealment properties for the Afghan terrain. SF at this point has adopted Multicam for it troops and there's a demand Army wide to outfit all member going to Afghanistan with multicam. 2012?, Army starts to look at replacing ACU with Multicam however there's some issues with licensing Multicam from Crye. Than someone at the Pentagon remembers that Crye submitted a pattern for FW that was very similar to Multicam which was already the property of the Army. So instead of fighting with Crye over Multicam, they just adopted the cousin to Multicam.